Jacob Ely
Jacob "Jake" Ely is the teenage son of Luke and Maxine Ely. Jake is half Shoshone, and is the youngest of six brothers: Kit, Nate, Adam, Bryan, Seth, and Quinn. He works for Wyatt Forster, as well as occasionally helping out the local police department with his tracking skills. His horse is a feisty mare with a bad attitude named Witch, and at the end of the series he is in possession of a coy dog (half coyote half dog) named Singer, that Sam is helping him gentle. He runs track for Darton High School. He and Jen do not get along well since they both always believe they are right. At the end of Run Away Home you get the feeling that Jake likes Sam as more than a friend as he walks over to her and takes her hands. Then he arches his eyebrows as if asking permission and asks her to walk over to the bonfire with him. The series ends with them walking hand in hand toward the bonfire, with Sam feeling confused by his actions, but happy to accept. Jake is known for being shy and trying to explain his thoughts in as few words as possible. He knows a lot about horses and Sam often turns to him for advice about a horse she is dealing with at the time. He is an expert tracker, and wants to work on the police force when he gets older. Jake starts off as a sixteen years old, but turns seventeen in book four,The Renegade, the same book in which he experience a compound fracture while ridding in a storm with Sam. During the ride back to Riverbend ranch, Jake kept his pain hidden from Sam and simply asked her of she had "seen his hat." Jake often plays the role of Sam's chauffeur/guardian exhibiting extreme protectiveness over her. In book 24, he walks with Sam into the barn after pulling her from a cliff edge and Sam notes that her Dad was "meeting Jake's eyes in one if those man-to-man looks that meant they'd be talking about her after she left the barn." When Sam returns home from San Francisco, he tells her that she was hurt last time because he wasn't watching her close enough, and that from now on he was going to "stick to her like glue". Sam and Jake often banter, and, as children, Jake used to tease her about being a mosquito in a past life because she was such a pest. Of course before he told her this, young Sam had insisted Jake must have been a mustang. Jakes response was more than likely due to his annoyance towards his Shoshone heritage. He dislikes talking about the old legends of his people, and is bothered when Sam hears old stories from his Grandpa Mac, (book ten: Red feathered filly,) and from the eldest Ely brother, Kit (book 24: Run away home.) Jake also often calls Sam 'brat' out of affection, more so than out of annoyance. Jake and Sam don't interact much while at Darton high, and the few times Sam seeks him out, he changes direction, or speaks minimally so their conversations can end sooner and he can leave to go back to his group, lead by Darell. Physical Appearance Jake is over six feet tall, and very fit. Because of his Shoshone ancestry, he has black hair, bronze skin and expressive brown eyes that Sam calls "mustang eyes". Most of the time, he keeps his hair long and ties it back. However, he cut his hair short for college interviews. When he is pleased or smug about something, he gives what Sam calls his "tomcat grin".